The Doha Round: A Global Insurance Policy - Preventing Protectionism in Turbulent Economic Times

German Marshall Fund and ECIPE Event
The Doha Round: A Global Insurance Policy - Preventing Protectionism in Turbulent Economic Times



As the aftershocks of the financial crisis begin to be felt in the real economy, there is a risk of a resort to trade protectionism. Today, how confident can we be that the WTO could withstand a strong move towards protectionism? In such a situation, a Doha Round agreement takes on a whole new significance.Large differences between applied and bound tariff rates in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors mean that many WTO member countries could increase their tariffs at anytime without breaking any of their current WTO commitments. The benefits of a Doha agreement should therefore be measured not solely by the economic gains to be had from further reductions in applied tariffs but also by the stability that reductions in bound rates would provide to volatile world markets.

Participants:
David Laborde, International Food Policy Research Institute, Patrick Messerlin, Groupe d’Economie Mondiale de Science Po and Chairman of ECIPE’s Advisory Board, Joe Guinan, The German Marshall Fund of the U.S.


RSVP: Vincenzo Conforti, vconforti@gmfus.org +32 (02) 238 52 74